San Francisco’s Mission District is, demographically, a primarily Hispanic district (about 50%), with the remainder of the population being White and Asian. Traditionally, it’s been a mixture of immigrants (legal and illegal), poor, working-class, and artsy-funky. It’s in the news today because the District used a $34,000 City-funded grant to paint a mural that shows joyful Palestinians overtaking Israel:
An emotional battle over a new mural in San Francisco’s Mission district that depicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been squelched after the supporting organization had its funding stalled and agreed to alter the controversial image.
At issue is a large mural in a parking lot on the corner of 24th and Capp streets, designed by local artist Eric Norberg and painted during the summer by more than 200 Mission district community members with an overall theme of breaking down physical and social walls.
One panel of the 117-foot wide and 10-foot tall mural, depicting Palestinians breaking through a crack in the Israeli security barrier, angered members of San Francisco’s Jewish community who said the image only portrays one side of the centuries-old conflict. The crack in the barrier is also shaped like Israel, and one Palestinian busting through wears a headscarf covering her face.
“The imagery took a radical position on a complex geopolitical issue that was out of touch with the international community, San Francisco and the overwhelming majority of Jews,” said Abby Michelson Porth, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, which raised the issue.
Frankly, this is the standard stuff one expects to come out of San Francisco and, while I’m disgusted, I’m too worn about this chronic bias to be incensed.
Something about this story, though, did pique my interest, because it’s a new twist on the whole pro-Palestinian view of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Apparently creating a pro-Palestinian mural is a “community building” activity in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood:
HOMEY, the organization that received a city grant to create two murals, said the mural was meant to unite the Mission district.
On its face, that it is an appalling statement — you unite a Hispanic neighborhood by showing approvingly a group of people bent on genocide (that would be the Palestinians, who are never coy about their ultimate goal) overrunning the nation that they intend to exterminate (Israel, of course).
But just so you’re really clear about HOMEY’s goal — and just so you understand that it is a Leftist group aimed at dethroning the two countries that are the most frequent targets of Leftist animus — the HOMEY representative keeps on talking:
“Our intention was to draw parallels between the issues at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Israeli-Palestinian security barrier,” said Nancy Hernandez, youth program coordinator at HOMEY. “We consider this section … to be a statement of solidarity between the residents of the San Francisco Mission district and global movements for oppressed peoples to gain self-determination.”
And that’s why the Left supports the Palestinians. It has nothing to do with history, morality, international law, decency, saving lives, preventing genocide, etc. Instead, just part of the ever-popular Leftist scenario in which anyone who feels, however justifiably or not, “oppressed” Israel or America, is your brother in arms. It’s the old class war, updated, and it goes a long way to explain the chronic immorality of these fellow travelers, who will support any regime or political group, no matter how grotesque, if that regime or group announces that it is the enemy of the United States and Israel.
And I just have to ask again, as I’ve asked for many years now, how can American Jews justify their apparently mindless decision to cling to the Lefter side of the political spectrum?
Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Immigration, Jews, Leftist morality, Mexico, San Francisco |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
What, they couldn’t find some muralist in the tradition of Diego Rivera to depict Bush, Chaney, and the neocons, et al, being tried for war crimes?
Anti-Jewish feeling is on the rise in the Mission. I’ve seen it and I’ve heard it. It is very real and hard to combat. KPFA is the main source of news, the Guardian is the main paper. The bookstores all worship Chompski. Osama Bin Laddin would have a welcoming party if he came to town.
Perhaps I could say, “hey, friends you know your ideas square pretty nicely with Hitler’s, do you think that’s really a great way to go?”
Instead we get this super-sofy “that’s not a balaced portrail of an ages old conflict.”
Frankly that softy stuff just adds to the problem, people should go straight to outrage. When they don’t it makes the truth seem extremist.
[…] the Left Posted on September 20, 2007 by Bookworm One more thing, related in a way to the SF mural post I did earlier. Yesterday, I did a post about that amazing collection of photographs that came to the US […]
[…] [Discuss this article with Bookworm over at Bookworm Room…] Share Article Palestinians, Israel, Israeli, Jewish Community Relations Council, Hispanic, genocide, Leftist, U.S.-Mexico border, America, United States Sphere: Related Content | Trackback URL […]
Book,
Interesting about that wonderful, community building “art” in SF. (see why I am a “recovering” artist?)
However, the most disturbing is your statement. “while I’m disgusted, I’m too worn about this chronic bias to be incensed.”
I know you are justifiably worn but still rightfully incensed, otherwise you would not have spilled those pixels over it.
I recently posted about a large number of disgusting so-called “Christian Evangelicals” pushing Bush to further partition Israel.
http://expreacherman.wordpress.com/2007/09/18/israel-evangelicals-and-the-president/
These are mostly recognized liberal clergy, but a few names will surprise most reasonable, discerning folks. Anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred has progressed beyond rhetoric. It is a wide eyed, obvious reality.
And incidentally, shouldn’t we send all our HS grads to Columbia to secure a “liberal” jihadi education so they can be swayed by the killer Ahmadinijad?
We live in a big East coast, Left coast liberal sandwich and wonder which radical anti-Semitic, pro Islamic Jihad bunch will take the last bite.
In Christ,
Time to visit the mural with a few cans of paint.
If the mural is that offensive, why doesn’t someone just destroy it? It wouldn’t be that hard to do; all it would take is a little freaking courage.
Talk about feeling unjustifiably oppressed. This is just more hysteria from the Jewish supremacist, Israel-can-do-no-wrong types.
An image of Palestinians beginning to be reunited with greater Palestine, of walls of opperssion starting to be breached threatens you?
I imagine if you nutty Jewish supremacists in San Francisco had your way you would build a giant wall around the Hispanic neighborhood to keep those brown people from defiling your pristine Jewish enclave by walking through. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Yours is exactly the kind of separatist supremacist hatred that has animated previous genocides. And your idiotic paranoia that all Palestinian want to drive Jews into the sea [as Zionists had done to Palestinians during the Naqba] proves it.
Looks to me as if Esteban made my point, doesn’t it folks? And, if you look at the very interesting post DQ did after I wrote this post, I think he kind of answers DQ’s question is that, no, until there’s more rationality from the Left and less spewing of personal invective and hatred, we’re going to be a nation divided.
He made your point, all right. Sometimes it can be hard though, to tell if it is ignorance or hatred, but neither is excusable.
Wait. I take that back. While it is just barely possible, between our schools and the MSM, to be unaware that the ‘Palestinians’ have always openly stated their goal of driving the Jews into the sea (and still do), it is not possible to be unaware of the reason for the walls or to innocently compare that to Hispanics.
Hmmm…Should we heat up the debate or try to cool it? Should we try to educate or strategically attack our opponents immorality?
I do sometimes have debates about whether Hamas or Hizbola are really a threat, but otherwise my opponents go either to “this is too emotional for me,” or personal insults.
Until we can see another way in…we are stuck.
As a late comer to this string, I could not help but note that one of the Hispanic supporters of the mural equated the attempts of Palestinians to break into Israel and take territory to the “issues on the US-Mexican border”, and thus express solidarity with “global movements for oppressed peoples to gain self-determination”. Looks like she is stating what some “right wing American fascists” have feared. There are some in the immigrant community who want to take territory from the US.
That fence looks better and better.
Al
Fortunately most Jews in San Francisco don’t share the bookworm’s bigoted views.
In fact, a number of Jews in the Bay Area took issue with either any efforts to change the mural, or the range of objections to the mural presented by opponents, and testified to that effect at the recent Arts Commission hearing. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace also wrote in a letter to the Arts Commission:
As Jews living in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, we wish you to know that the complaints of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Anti-Defamation League do not reflect our views, nor do they reflect the consensus of the Jewish community in San Francisco, or in the Bay Area. We ask you not to accept the opinions of the JCRC and ADL uncritically, and ask you to listen to the concerns of others in the community, including both Jews and others, who do not share a negative interpretation of the mural.
It is amazing how many people consider your views bigoted, Book. Since they obviously have a preference for their own views and biases.
I need help understanding something about the Left. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t keep trying…)
From 2005:
A Columbia University body that helps set policy voted yesterday to reject a resolution calling for reinstatement of the R.O.T.C., which has been banned from the campus since 1969. … The vote, which followed a two-hour debate that centered on discrimination by the military against people who are openly gay, was 51 to 11. Several participants called it surprisingly lopsided.
From 2007:
Students at Columbia University showed guarded enthusiasm Friday toward a planned visit next week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
I am confused.
So, the students and the administration at Columbia U have banned the ROTC because of discrimination against gays by the military. They’ve done so since 1999, due to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
But Achmanijihad is a supporter of radical jihad whose government regularly MURDERS gays by hanging and other more grisly forms of execution. And this fellow is invited by the administration at Columbia and the students are said to be guardedly enthusiastic. Many of them, I am sure, consider his appearance to be beyond wonderful.
What gives? The problem with the ROTC, based on the above comparison, do not appear to be about gays at all. It CANNOT be about gays, since the entire University should be in a total frantic meltdown about gay-KILLER Achmed-baby.
Can anyone explain them?
Of course I can explain. The common thread, unspoken, is anti-Americanism. The military is the quintessential American institution. Ahmadinejad is one of the most vocal America haters. There’s logic there; they just don’t want you to see it.
By the way, Mike, immediately after writing that comment, I went to American Thinker and found one more piece of evidence supporting my thesis: this inane Jewish gay women who loves Ahmadinejad because he speaks to American power. She’s articulated perfectly what I was talking about.
I need help understanding something about the Left. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t keep trying…)
It is not that you shouldn’t keep trying, but rather you should keep things in perspective. Be realistic about your expectations and degree of progress. Past a certain point there will be a degree of diminishing returns and you will have to decide whether the slightly additional understanding you gain of a diseased and decrepit belief system balances out the amount of effort you have expended. There’s only so much you can learn about nihilism before you would have to become a nihilist to learn more. The Art of War does not recommend that you become your enemy only that you understand him to defeat him.
The reason why people, arch feminists that lobbied for more action in Afghanistan to help their “sisters” there under the heel of oppression, turned against Operation Enduring Freedom is because they never believed in libert or equality of under the law for women. What they believed in was whatever benefited them personally in an emotional or intellectual or economic fashion. At the time, agitating for Afghanistan women served their purposes. When it came time to build a better world however, narcissists, nihilists, Leftists, useful idiots, etc cannot go against their beliefs in entropy to actually dirty their hands with building a better world. After all, servants of entropy are in the business of weakening people, not building them up.
Oh, be assured, the students and the professoriate, the latter being the far more important factor in organization power, believe that they are building a better world. Hence why “useful idiot” is a useful title for such. For example, some folks believe that Amanie is a good guy, a freedom fighter that simply resists the juggernaut of American power for the good of his people laboring under Imperial threats that America has already instituted in Iraq. Why wouldn’t they support this underdog (that executes pet dogs) against the murderous entity and global threat called America?
One question you have to ask yourself, Mike, is whether Leftist beliefs and false slogans were ever concerned about the plight of the downtrodden and the helpless. Remember, they were created with the aid of Soviet organizations, funding, and ideology backed up by centuries of Socialist conditioning and aristocratic inheritance. Would the Soviets create an organization that would interfere with the Soviets’ ability to squeeze as many coins they could from the proles and the middle class to go into the Communist party party fund? No, of course not.
It was simply a front. Leftist organizations were created as a front for entropy and totalitarianism and thus they remain a front for entropy and totalitarianism. With the Soviets gone, they have gone looking for new masters to tell them what to do. The Left were never designed to be self-aware tools, Mike.
The thing is, because the Left is so parochial, rather than the cosmopolitan title they falsely claim to hold, the Left tends to fall prey to much ignorance about foreign matters. It isn’t so much that they can’t access or don’t know about how things are in Iran, rather it is more like they only care about what is going on in their own little village. Whatever happens across that mountain or river… simply does not exist for them either in the reality or in the abstract. Why? Because they cannot simply imagine a people or a situation DIFFERENT from what they have known. Parochialism, Mike. All they do know is American problems and American centered policies. That is what they are designed to fight, Mike, thus it makes logical sense to restrict a tool’s ability to be aware only of that which it was designed to solve, correct?
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/the-jena-6-protesters-say-praise-mychal-bell
The comment I wrote to the Jena story is also relevant to Book’s topic on Palestinian-Mexican immigrant connections.
I disagree that it is anti-Americanism. Rather, it is anti-Good. Anti-Americanism implies that if it wasn’t America involved, then it would be okay since anti-Americans are biased against Americans. That is not true though. They aren’t just biased against Americans or America, rather they are biased against the good of the human race. If America disappeared and somebody else got into power by taking on the same responsibilities to ensure law and order that America currently has, then the same folks would be against the new world order as much as they are against the AMerican world order.
Depending upon who the new world order was, the rebels might be listened to or they might be disappeared. Depends, really.
I mean if the Draka were in power, these spies and saboteurs inside America would have a very short shelf life.
Regardless of whatever world orders is or is not in existence, what stays the same is human motivation. There is always going to be people that will rebel against the system or try to undermine. Partially because they can and partially because they are greedy and want more than they could get under the system. If the UN bureacrats were offered limitless virgin boys and girls and billions in retirement each year individually, they would be great American lovers. So long as America paid their check and didn’t interfere in their little games and fun, of course. But that is thing. The Good won’t allow the Evil, and that pisses the Evil off, doesn’t it.
Functionally, matter and anti-matter destroy each other because they simply cannot exist in the same place at the same time. This is a unviersal concept, not just a human one.
Hey Jack
I dare you to visit the mural with your cans… I want to see how the guys on the street react to your action. In fact I dare any of you. If you think you understand the street dynamics that exist on those streets you have a quick lesson to learn. Good luck. The reason those images are even there is because in your great American society we all have freedom of speech, don’t justify terrorism and censorship just because its government sponsored i dont see any one of you talking about how that border/wall which the Palestinians are breaking down is in fact on what is internationally recognized as PALESTINIAN land, is that missing from your understanding & knowledge or is that your status and history prevents you from understand the struggle of another oppressed people now that you are that oppressor?
Hey, international land means it belongs to every nation. Who gave you the right to stop Israel from putting a wall on it?